


Equinox

by Amerna



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Birthday, F/M, earthquake, minor character (OMC) death, trapped underground
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 02:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11957913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amerna/pseuds/Amerna
Summary: An earthquake traps Darcy and Steve underground.





	Equinox

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Em_Jaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Em!
> 
> Also, sorry... this isn’t as entirely happy go lucky as a birthday fic should be. Sorry... at some point, I’ll write you a perfectly fluffy fic.
> 
> I started this on Sunday. Not a humblebrag, just: if you find any (glaring) errors, 1) sorry and 2) let me know! I’ll get to them eventually.

### Equinox

When the ground began shaking beneath her feat, Darcy, remembering her countless high school earthquake drills, immediately dropped low and searched for cover. She was in a deserted hallway with doors on both sides. She had no idea what horrors would lie beyond those, she was just about to get started on securing the area.

She opened the next best door and found that it led to an operating room. Darcy looked around and found it empty. So she took cover under the operating table, closed her eyes and prayed for it to end soon. Around her, equipment was falling from the shelves, the overhead lamps were moving erratically, creaking and then falling to the ground, one of the doors on the glass shelves made a strange clacking noise and then burst. There was rumbling in the distance.

When she opened her eyes again, everything around her was pitch black. She took a deep breath and then another and then fumbled with her tac belt to find her flashlight. When she turned it on, she took in the chaos that surrounded her, then got up from her cover and looked around. There was absolute silence now. She attached the flashlight to her gun and stepped over the mess of medical supplies on the floor towards the door and into the hallway.

Earthquake or not, she still had to secure the area.

The hallway was now roughly 30 feet long. The ceiling had collapsed on both sides, leaving a wall of debris and Darcy essentially locked in. Before she could think about it further, a person stepped out of one of the doors on her right.

“Freeze!” Darcy yelled immediately, aiming her gun at the person.

“Lewis?” a male voice asked.

Darcy recognized the voice immediately and lowered her weapon.

“Captain Rogers.”

~*~

The wall of debris on both sides of the hallway proved to be insurmountable. They tried to clear the hallway to find a way out, but the ceiling continued to cave and they decided not to push their luck because they didn’t want the hallway to collapse onto them.

There was only static from their comm units.

She was 50 feet underground in a secret research facility.

She was officially buried alive with Captain America.

Well, that was maybe a little overdramatic. They were trapped underground together until help arrived. And it was good to have him with her, because he immediately took charge of the situation. Darcy was self-aware enough to admit that, in this situation, she would probably have panicked a little had she been alone before she would’ve gotten her act together.

When it became clear that they wouldn’t make it out on their own and would probably have to wait for their rescue, he suggested that they looked for water because that was the most important thing to have in this situation. They found a couple of gallons of sterile water in a storage room next to the operating room Darcy had taken cover in. Captain Rogers had hidden under a desk in an office on the other side of the hallway. The remaining rooms were empty.

Darcy followed the Captain back into the office after their search, carrying their water supplies. She had no idea what to do next. She had already lost track of time because neither she nor the Captain had a watch.

To her surprise he plopped onto the ground and sat with his back against the wall.

“We should wait here,” he explained, when he saw her confused look. “We shouldn’t split up and if there are aftershocks, we can both take cover under the desk.”

“Okay,” Darcy said, sitting down next to him.

“You should probably turn off your flashlight, to conserve the batteries.”

“Good point.”

They were silent for a long moment.

“Any idea how we can pass the time?” he then asked.

“No deck of cards in that utility belt?”

“No.”

“Two truths one lie?”

~*~

What felt like hours and countless rounds of two truths one lie later, Darcy knew that Steve (they had decided to forego formalities pretty quickly) had once punched out a horse, had a pretty impressive vinyl collection, knew how to French braid, and volunteered at the homeless shelter every Saturday – work permitting.

It was surprisingly easy to hang out and wait with him. Despite working for the Avengers for more than five years now, Darcy had never really had any interaction with him. She was a normal field agent that did a lot of the grunt work – like securing hallways in an evil scientist’s lair – whereas he was the First Avenger, the team leader, and occasionally saved the world. She had spoken in his presence once, maybe twice. It was remarkable that he remembered her name, had even recognized her by her voice.

Darcy suggested “I’m going on a picnic” next, once they’d told each other every basically little trivia about their lives.

“That would be unfair,” Steve objected. “I have near perfect memory. I’d crush you at that.”

“Bring it,” Darcy challenged.

Roughly ten minutes later she regretted her words, when Steve had crushed her every single time. She could basically see his smug grin in the darkness.

“So what next?” Darcy asked, annoyed, after he had defeated her seven times in a row.

He chuckled quietly. “What about we find words that don’t rhyme. So I say a word and you have to come up with a word that rhymes and if you can’t find any, I get-”

“Orange,” Darcy said.

“What?”

“Find a word that rhymes with orange. You can’t. I win.”

“Somebody is a sore loser, I see,” he teased.

“Hah, no, I’m really good at this game. Try me. My next word is Stonehenge.”

Steve was quiet for a moment. “Okay. How about we try rearranging the letters in our names to make new words. So I’m Steven Grant Rogers, which would be-”

Darcy groaned.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, that was not a ‘nothing’ groan.”

“I don’t want to play that game. I have the worst middle name ever,” she complained.

“It can’t be that bad.”

“It’s pretty bad,” Darcy stated. “I barely tell people. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve told anyone in the past decade.”

“Come on, we’re 50 feet underground. Rules really don’t apply. I promise I won’t tell anybody.”

“Promise?”

“Pinky promise,” he said earnestly.

“Alright.” Darcy took a deep breath. “It’s Equinox. Darcy Equinox Lewis.”

Steve was silent for a long moment. Darcy simultaneously cursed and welcomed the darkness. Now she didn’t have to see how he struggled to school his features. But then, it might actually be funny to see that. “That’s… unusual,” he then dared to comment.

Darcy rolled her eyes even though she knew Steve couldn’t see. “I was born on the fall equinox,” she then explained. “My dad thought it would be fitting and my mom didn’t protest. She claimed she was too drugged up.”

“Wait, your birthday is tomorrow?” Steve asked in disbelief.

“Yup. Or today. Depending on what time it is.” They’d began the mission mid-afternoon. Since she had no way of knowing how much time had passed, it could already be her birthday.

“Oh wow, that sucks. Now we really have to get you out of here quick.”

“It’s alright,” Darcy said casually. “I wasn’t planning on doing anything anyway. Except work and hang out with my cat and a bottle of red wine afterwards.”

“Really?”

“Really. I prefer not to celebrate my birthday.”

They were silent for a moment. “How old do you-” Steve began.

“You’re not supposed to ask a lady for her age,” Darcy teased.

Steve snorted. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s alright. It’s 29a,” Darcy joked. “Because women don’t turn 30, they turn 29 and then the alphabet starts.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing about age that I’ve ever heard,” Steve stated. “And that’s coming from a 100-year old, who’s only in his early 30s.”

Darcy laughed softly at that.

“You know, equinox is kind of fitting,” Steve said pensively after a moment. “It’s when day and night are of equal length, it kind of feels that way. Day and night are the same.”

“No,” Darcy disagreed. “This is quasi the polar night. Night here lasts the entire day.”

“Somebody is a little pedantic I see.”

“No, I worked with a leading astrophysicist for a long time, I caught a lot of things.”

“Point taken,” Steve conceded. “So… Darcy Equinox Lewis… Dare… Wise…” Steve faltered.

“Good luck with that. With the Q and the X, it’s basically impossible.”

“You haven’t managed to get any anagrams out of my name yet,” Steve challenged her.

Darcy thought for a moment. “Avenger Rest Strong. I’m totally winning this game.”

~*~

Darcy fell asleep on Steve’s shoulder somewhere around their fourth round of 20 questions that they’d begun after Steve had tried – and failed – to find an anagram for her name for probably almost an hour.

“Darcy,” she was gently shaken awake by Steve some time later. She had no idea how late it was. “I hear sounds.”

“What?” she was disoriented for a moment.

“Somebody is close by. It’s coming from the south side of the hallway, from behind the wall of debris.”

Darcy was wide awake in an instant. “Somebody to rescue us?”

“I don’t know. But I can’t hear anybody using equipment or the like.”

Darcy strained her ears and she thought she could hear some… scratching sounds in the distance. “Should we check it out?” she asked.

“If somebody is trying to come through that wall, we should be prepared.”

Darcy simply nodded curtly, got up, turned her flashlight back on, got her gun ready, and they went to the south side of the hallway.

“Sounds like…” Steve began, “like somebody is moving the debris out of the way, piece by piece.”

“Shit,” Darcy said, “that’s so dangerous.”

“Maybe they fortified the ceiling before-”

Steve couldn’t finish his sentence because the ground began to vibrate again. This time, it felt like there was no time to look for cover, the ceiling was already collapsing around her.

“Move, move, move,” Steve yelled, putting her out of her stupor. Darcy ran, her hands covering her head, towards the little office and jumped under the desk – even though she wasn’t really sure how much good that would do her. She waited for Steve to come in shortly behind her, but he didn’t appear. The seconds before the earth stopped moving felt like hours.

The air surrounding her was dusty. Darcy coughed. “Steve?” she yelled, but he didn’t answer. She crawled up from under the desk. “Steve?” she repeated.

There was silence for another few seconds. “Darcy?” he then finally answered.

Darcy let out a sigh of relief and then he was standing in front of her. Darcy looked him over with her flashlight and noticed his injury. Something had hit is head. Though the wound had already stopped bleeding, his blond hair on the left side was matted with blood.

“Shit,” Darcy swore, “you’re injured.”

“It’s alright,” he waved her concern away, “it’ll sort itself out in a minute or two.” He looked at her searchingly. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Yes, I’m fine,” she repeated to herself, realizing once more how lucky she’d been.

“We should try-” Steve began.

And then the screaming started.

~*~

Somebody was screaming for help.

There was a hole at the top of the pile of debris on the south side of the tunnel and that’s where the screaming came from. Just somebody screaming for help, no light.

“I’m really not comfortable with you doing this,” Steve argued.

“I don’t care, I’m doing this,” Darcy shot back, already climbing up the pile of rubble. The hole at the top was large enough for her to wiggle through.

“What if it’s a trap?”

“Then I’ll defend myself for the 30 seconds it’ll take you to get to the other side.”

Steve let out a frustrated sound but didn’t say anything further so Darcy continued on. She wiggled through the hole and onto the other side. She almost fell down the incline, but managed to catch herself after a moment and just slid down a couple of feet. The screaming had stopped mysteriously.

“Hello?” a male voice said into the darkness. “Hello?” he repeated.

Darcy used her flashlight to find the source of the words. And found an agent trapped under a gigantic block of concrete and a pile of debris. She sucked in a sharp breath and called for Steve.

~*~

Steve knelt on the agent’s other side. Darcy was holding the one hand that wasn’t covered by debris. His pulse was weak.

“Agent Webber,” he said, when he recognized the face.

“Cap- Captain America!” Agent Webber pressed out in surprise.

“You can call me Steve,” Steve said kindly.

“I- I- I could never do that.”

Steve stared at Darcy who was still too shocked to do anything about it.

“What do we do know?” Darcy whispered.

“There is nothing we can do,” Steve answered equally quiet.

“Can’t you try to lift it off him?”

Steve shook his head. “It’s too heavy. And maybe lifting it off him would actually do more harm than good? I’m sure he’s injured, might even be bleeding internally. I don’t know,” he dragged his hand through his hair, “neither of us is trained as a medic and the moment we lift this off him, we need to be able to treat his injuries – and we can’t.”

“There’s all this medical equipment back-” Darcy began.

“We don’t know how to use it,” Steve interrupted.

“So we’re just going to let him-” Darcy stopped, leaving the word “die” unspoken.

“No, we’ll hope that the rescue will arrive on time.”

Darcy lost all track of time while they sat next to the injured agent, trying to distract him from his fate. Darcy talked to him, asking him about this life, with Steve occasionally chiming in. She held his hand the entire time and could feel how his pulse weakened beneath her fingers.

“I’m okay,” Agent Webber said, suddenly, “I’m okay.” He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“It’s going to be alright,” Darcy told him, tears welling up in her eyes. She squeezed his hand tightly. His pulse was so weak now she could barely feel it. “You’re going to be fine,” she said to him and to convince herself.

“It was great-” he took a deep breath and his face scrunched up in pain. “It was great meeting you, Darcy and you, Captain America.”

“The honor is all mine,” Steve said solemnly.

“Thank you,” Agent Webber – Frederick – said, and then his grip on Darcy’s hand loosened and his breathing stilled and his eyes stopped moving.

Darcy started crying in earnest then. Through her tears she saw how Steve closed his eyes, pain flashing across his face for just a moment before he schooled it into an impassive expression.

Then he placed a hand on Darcy’s shoulder.

“Are you going to be alright?” he asked softly.

Darcy jerked back from his touch and stared at him. He was so maddeningly calm already. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone for a moment? A man had just died while she’d held his hand.

“How can you be so unaffected?” she asked harshly.

He backtracked a little. “I’ve seen a lot.”

“So you just stopped caring?”

“No, if I had, I wouldn’t be good at my job,” Steve pointed out evenly. “I can’t afford to break down every time I can’t save somebody. That’s how it is.”

“That’s heartless.”

Steve shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s what we do. You’ve been an agent with us for over half a decade. You know that in this job, we can’t save everybody.”

Darcy struggled to her feet. “You’re a cold-hearted monster.”

“Darcy-”

“Just leave me the fuck alone.” She stalked away into the darkness.

~*~

When they were finally found, the rescue itself was a little anti-climactic. The emergency response team broke through a wall at the north end some time later and Steve and Darcy were both led through a maze of tunnels and stairs and broken-through walls to make it outside.

It was daybreak, so roughly 12 hours had passed since the first earthquake that had trapped them underground. Steve and Darcy were separated to be taken care of by emergency medical services. Darcy was led to an ambulance, where a paramedic checked her over. He didn’t see anything worrisome, put a blanket around her shoulder, then gave her some water and an energy bite that looked as disgusting as it tasted.

He told her to take as much time as she needed and that she’d be transported back to HQ in an hour or so – if there weren’t any aftershocks or something else that would impede the rescue operation. He left the back door to the ambulance open when he left and Darcy sat on the step and took in the sunrise. It felt like the best birthday she’d had in the past ten years or so, maybe even in this century.

Steve found her half an hour later.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey back,” Darcy said, looking up at him. Only now she realized how she must look. Steve’s uniform was covered in dust and streaks of dirt. She probably looked the same. And there was still dark red in his hair – the dried blood from the head wound a few hours ago.

He looked a little unsure, just standing in front of her, so Darcy she scooted over and Steve sat down next to her. He softly bumped his shoulder into hers. “Happy birthday,” he then said quietly.

“Thank you.”

They sat next to each other in silence for a while, surveying the scene around them. The emergency response team was still finding people in the deeper levels of the facility, rescuing them one after another. And they’d found another five dead.

“What happens now… with Agent Webber?” Darcy finally asked.

Steve sighed. “I’ll contact his next of kin and make the necessary arrangements.”

“Shit,” Darcy swore softly.

Steve shrugged. “Yes, it sucks.”

“Do you always have to do that?” she wanted to know.

“Mostly only when they’re on my team or report directly to me. But I want to do this.”

“I’m sorry. For what I said-”

“Don’t be,” Steve interrupted her. “Your reaction was natural.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean…” she trailed off. “I overreacted.”

“I know. I’m not…” he grimaced, “I’m not that jaded, Darcy, or that cold-hearted. Even to me his death was shocking. I have lost soldiers… agents before. And there were countless civilians whom I couldn’t save. And you learn to live with that. You have to. But very rarely have I kneeled next to their destroyed body while they took their last breath.”

“I could see…” Darcy swallowed hard, “the light in his eyes go out.”

Steve grabbed her hand and Darcy wondered when it had started shaking. “You did a good job at comforting him,” he told her earnestly. “Better than I ever could. The rest – nothing is your fault.”

Darcy nodded, then cleared her throat. “Let me know how the arrangements for his… his funeral and all that turn out.”

“I will,” Steve promised earnestly.

~*~

“Darcy!” Darcy heard her name called out behind her and turned around. It was Steve… she should probably go back to calling him Captain Rogers, she realized. She hadn’t seen him in a while, since Agent Webber’s funeral a few weeks ago to be precise. That wasn’t unexpected. They’d both gone back to their normal routines after the earthquake: he was saving the world and she was doing the grunt work.

Now he was jogging towards her. She had no idea what he wanted.

“Hey,” she said.

“Liquorice sexy dawn.”

“What?” Darcy frowned at him, wondering if he had a recent head injury or something like that.

“It’s an anagram.”

Darcy’s frown deepened.

“For your name. But only works with the British English spelling,” he added a little apologetically.

Darcy silently shook her head, then started grinning. “Did you look that up on the internet?”

Steve looked offended for a moment. “I would never do that! That’s cheating! I did it the old-fashioned way and borrowed Sam’s game of scrabble. Another anagram: sexy liquorice wand.”

Darcy snorted. “That sounds disgustingly sexual,” she told him.

“Which is why I went with ‘liquorice sexy dawn’ first. Lead with something innocent.”

“Can you please stop saying ‘sexy’? It’s unbecoming for Captain America,” Darcy teased.

Steve waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Now I’ll try to come up with as many anagrams of your name as possible that will all include the word ‘sexy’.”

Darcy laughed at that.

He looked at her searchingly then and the mood change abruptly. “Are you doing okay?” he asked.

Darcy nodded. “Yeah, I am. Did you arrange for the therapist to see me? It was good, but also felt kind of overkill.”

“No, that’s standard procedure. I went too.”

They started walking and he fell into step next to her.

“Are you holding up okay, too?” Darcy asked.

“Yeah,” he answered, “already back to the daily grind. Did you celebrate your birthday? After all of it?”

Darcy shook her head. “I told you I wouldn’t celebrate. And being rescued was kind of gift enough?” she said contemplatively. “Some kind of rebirth or something – even though we were only trapped for half a day or so.”

Steve hummed in acknowledgement, was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Look…” he began, “do you want to get coffee some time?”

Darcy stopped abruptly and blinked at him. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

He nodded. “Are you saying yes?” he challenged.

Darcy cocked her head to one side. She hadn’t expected that. At all. “Yes,” she then answered, “I guess I am.” Steve started grinning. “But I’m kind of worried that we don’t have anything to talk about. I mean, you already told me that you punched out a horse once upon a time. It’s hard to top that.”

He looked at her intently. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll find a way to… pass the time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Steve punching out horses (and a lion) [is from the comics](https://volnixshin.tumblr.com/post/123989556678/honestly-i-dont-know-why-people-dont-read).


End file.
